Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Moreland City Council has just installed an extra 100kW of solar PV panels - 390 new panels in all - on the Coburg Civic Centre roof. This adds to the existing 9kW system that was already functioning.

These panels will meet 30 per cent of the building's energy needs, as well as saving 160 tonnes of greenhouse gases every year, with an estimated saving of $23,000 from Council's electricity bill each year,

We think this is great news. Keep up the good work City of Moreland in transitioning to zero net emissions.

You’ve never seen Moreland like this before… We’ve been busy installing 390 high-quality solar panels here at the Coburg Town Hall. We thought you’d want to see what a saving of $23,000 looks like, so we sent in a drone to capture it all on film. To learn more about our commitment to energy efficiency projects, visit http://bit.ly/1D041e6.

On average, householders in Moreland have installed 3.9 kW solar power systems

I also checked the latest figures for March 2015. In December 2013 I looked at the penetration of solar PV in Fawkner and more broadly across Moreland. Figues in brackets are from November 2013 data, so you can compare the change.

Suburb

Total Dwellings

Dwellings installed

Percent

Installed capacity

Fawkner 3060

4520

328 (246)

7.3% (5.4%)

940kW (571kW)

Hadfield, Glenroy and Oak Park 3046

11482

811 (635)

7.10% (5.5%)

2167kW (1391kW)

Coburg 3058

11303

1092 (835)

9.7% (7.4%)

3178kW (1990kW)

Pascoe Vale 3044

9127

680 (546)

7.5% (6%)

1716kW (1238kW)

Brunswick 3056

7014

504 (389)

7.20% (5.5%)

1264kW (835kW)

Brunswick South, Brunswick West 3055

3933

303 (246)

7.70% (6.3%)

756kW (563kW)

Moreland LGA

51330 (56139)

4027 (3343)

7.80% (6.1%)

10950kW (7666kW)

Congratulations Moreland. We now have a power station the equivalent of a 12MWh of annual generation capacity operating during the day on the roofs of Moreland. A good proportion of this energy would be used near production, saving in energy transmission losses. Of course Moreland is not the only municipality enjoying the solar PV revolution. Here are the latest stats of some Melbourne northern region solar PV installations:

Municipality

Total Dwellings

Dwellings installed

Percent

Installed capacity

Moreland

51330

4027

7.8%

10950kW

Moonee Valley

36135

3050

8.40%

8583kW

Darebin

46499

4400

9.5%

11316kW

Hume

54920

8007

14.6%

24692kW

Whittlesea

52770

7394

14.00%

20888kW

Banyule

43137

3681

8.50%

9959kW

Maribyrnong

23539

2026

8.60%

5753kW

Melbourne

10236

551

5.40%

2132kW

As you can see from this table the urban/rural fringe municipalities of Hume and Whittlesea have a much greater penetration of solar PV, now exceeding 14 per cent. These are not wealthy areas, with new estates where people have a substantial mortgage but also see solar PV as a cost effective way of saving on their utility electricity consumption. Moreland at 7.8% is second lowest after the City of Melbourne.

There is still a lot of opportunity for take up of solar PV in Moreland. The City of Moreland in their Zero Carbon Evolution plan are aiming for a 22 per cent reduction in community emissions from the municipality, with solar PV on 21,200 homes by 2020 generating 42.4MW contributing a 5.2 per cent reduction as part of the plan.

But due to the loss of the carbon price from July 2014, utility scale energy production from both black and brown coal is rising. We need action at both state and Federal level to enhance emission standards that will result in the closure of some of our ageing coal fired clinkers like Hazelwood, which is the most polluting and inefficient power station in the industrial word, and produces substantial population health impacts and social costs.

Twitter

About Me

Time to leap out of the slowly boiling pot of earth's warming climate
into action on climate mitigation and adaption.
I don't want my children to ask why I didn't act after reading the
scientific reports of climate risks. I write on the
effects of human induced climate change, sea level rise, ocean
acidification, biodiversity loss, environmental and social impacts of
global warming, and climate protests from a Melbourne Citizen
Journalist.

A member of environmental NGOs and community groups for 30 years in Australia, currently living in Melbourne. I have been a Citizen journalist for the Indymedia network in Australia and worldwide from 2000, as an editor and contributor with Australia Indymedia and the global features collective. Since 2013 I have contributed many stories to Margot Kingston's citizen journalism website: nofibs.com.au. (See my article archive) I also post photoessays to Flickr and videos to Youtube and edit wikipedia as user Tirin. My website is takver.com where I can be contacted through the feedback form, the most reliable way to contact me. I can also be contacted through facebook and on twitter as @takvera.